This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

Dillon Casey fills bad boy role on Global TV's Remedy

Nikita actor and his management had to be convinced to take role in the Canadian medical drama, but now Casey is glad he did.

Dillon Casey, known to TV viewers for Nikita, is earning praise from producers for his role as Griffin Conner in Global TV's medical drama Remedy, which debuts Feb. 24. (SHAW MEDIA)

By Bill BriouxSpecial to the Star

Mon., Feb. 24, 2014

Behold Remedy’s prodigal son, Griffin Conner. It wasn’t an easy role to cast, according to executive producer Bernie Zukerman (King, This Is Wonderland).

The part called for a “hot young actor,” he says, and most Canadians who fit that bill “just go directly to the States.”

That was Dillon Casey’s plan after shooting Nikita for two seasons in Toronto. That CW drama raised his profile in America and the Dallas native, who grew up in Oakville, Ont., and has had his share of Canadian credits (Being Erica, MVP), was keen to explore opportunities stateside.

His L.A. management team, in fact, passed on Remedy. Zukerman and the other producers “had to circle back and really make a much harder push.” So did the network.

It helped that Casey really liked the script.

Article Continued Below

“It was a page turner, first of all,” he says of showrunner Greg Spottiswood’s pilot effort. “It was the first script in a while that I actually wanted to know what happened on the next page.”

The 30-year-old actor could also relate to this guy who kind of backs out of the family medical business.

“My dad’s a doctor,” he says. “When your dad’s a doctor, everybody comes up to you and says, ‘Are you going to be a doctor like your dad?’”

Casey thought about it. He even studied science at McGill.

Then the acting bug bit and, instead of being a doctor, he now plays an orderly on TV.

“They’re called porters now,” he corrects.

He also jumped at the chance to work with Enrico Colantoni. He recently watched Colantoni’s 1999 feature Galaxy Quest “just for Rico this time,” he says. “He was amazing.”

Plus, he adds — joining a chorus of actors who have worked with Colantoni — “he’s the nicest guy.”

Colantoni, who has gone from working with Hugh Dillon (in Flashpoint) to Dillon Casey in Remedy, returns the praise and then some.

“He’s as organic as they come,” he says, comparing Casey to Hugh Dillon. “It’s impossible for him to lie (in a scene).”

“He’s such a good-looking man,” Colantoni continues, “that you expect him to define himself by his looks, but that’s the last thing he defines himself with. He’s smart. He’s got a master’s in economics and a bachelor of environmental science.”

Casey was also happy to find a role he could not be written out of so easily. That happened to him in Nikita, when his ex-Navy SEAL character was killed off before the series ended.

That turned out to be a lucky break, freeing Casey up to take the Global medical drama.

He likes that Griffin is a bit of a bad boy. “He’s the son who went off the deep end a bit. What was the expression that Greg used? ‘He flamed out.’”

The pilot finds him covered in blood and being investigated after a knife fight in a bar. He winds up being treated at, then working in, the very hospital where his father (Colantoni) is chief of staff and where his sisters also work. Griffin, however, is in the “downstairs” part with the rest of the lowly porters.

Casey says he’s enjoying the chance to “learn a lot, especially from guys like Rico and Greg. I mean, I’ve had opportunities, but never to do the range of things I’ve done in this show.”

He sees Remedy as “an opportunity to see what I’m capable of, in a way.”

Spottiswood feels he’s capable of plenty.

“I knew he was good when we cast him, but he’s really good,” he says. “There are very good actors who don’t have the capability to project an inner life when they’re not talking or doing anything. He has that capacity, which was a revelation, and we’ve been using it. Basically he doesn’t have to do very much for us to be engaged and feel.”

More from the Toronto Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com